


Tremor

by lifeonmars



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:49:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeonmars/pseuds/lifeonmars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Fall, the war is at home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tremor

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Tremor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619275) by [Selichuchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selichuchi/pseuds/Selichuchi)



John's hands are shaking. 

It's war, but not the war he knows. That war was one he understood, one that filled his blood with comforting, familiar fear. That war stilled his mind, focused his breath, sharpened everything into dust.

The new war is at home.

It began with a shot across the bow, a surprise attack that hit John like a revelation and a bullet and a wound. The explosion of a door, opening. The shock that was Sherlock. Sherlock, after three years. Sherlock, dead; not anymore.

John is on an unfamiliar battlefield.

He is alone, stripped of his rank. No private carries out his orders, the rants and wishes that rattle him at odd moments. He swallows them, eats them like grenades. They detonate deep in his gut and fill him with fury and bile. 

He is so angry.

There is no battle plan; he surrenders. He doesn't even remember doing it, but he must have, because he's back in Baker Street, back in his upstairs bedroom, and everything looks the same, but his hands are shaking. He still goes to work. He has tea with Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock is in and out of the flat, indistinct, pale as a ghost, and there is nothing for it but to keep going as if nothing has changed. Swallow it all.

But there is a tremor, a crack running through him. He is rattled.

He shakes.

Sherlock is Sherlock. He goes to Bart's and the Yard, walks under bridges and deep into London, pulls the weeds around his old life until the paths are clear. He is back. He paces, he wails on the violin, he hovers near John and then leaves for hours, for days. Sherlock talks, but never knows what to say; everything is the same, except for the war. This new war.

He must notice John's hands. If he does, he never says anything. 

Some days John wants to start the war; he wants to rail at Sherlock, hurl everything at him, hurl the anger of the past three years back into Sherlock. Some days John only wants to end the war, prays for it to stop; he doesn't know how to do it. After all, he has already surrendered. Wars don't usually work like this. 

One day, a day the same as the others, Sherlock comes home and tosses his coat over a chair and John gets up to make tea. He puts on the kettle and takes out two mugs, two of them, and they rattle as he sets them on the counter with his shaking hands and suddenly there's a chip in his mug, a bit of china missing, a tiny fracture.

He's the one that's broken. And he breaks.

"You did this," John says, and he's shouting, mug in hand. Sherlock's eyes are wide, saucers to John's teacup, and he's staring at John. " _You did this, Sherlock, you did this_  --" and John lets loose, arm winging forward with all the brilliant accuracy of a pure marksman, and his mug flies like a bullet into the center of the mirror over the mantlepiece, and everything shatters.

Glass and china all over the rug, pieces of mirror reflecting wallpaper and skulls and fractured facets of the flat, Sherlock's pale eyes and John's shaking hands.

"You can't fix this," John says, and his voice is breaking too. "You can't fix what we had, and all I want, Sherlock, all I want is to stop being angry, and you can't --  _I can't_  --" and his vision blurs.

John doesn't feel anything, after that. He has, after all, surrendered. 

But after a time he is aware of Sherlock, Sherlock's long form, his proximity. The couch? They are sitting on the couch. The flat is still reflected in pieces on the floor. 

Sherlock's face is wet.

Pale hands, ghost hands, cover John's hands. John's steady, true, marksman hands.

And for once, for now, they are still.

**Author's Note:**

> For the #innercircle crew, with thanks.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Tremor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469525) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




End file.
